Like many of you, I recognize that AJ is a beautiful young woman and assumed her “HEY PALS I’M A GAMER GIRL VROOM VROOM STAR TREK BEEP BOOP” thing was just a way to get her over with that crowd who believes Olivia Munn loves StarCraft and isn’t just posing naked with an Xbox controller to take your money. Last night, in the same ring where Brie and Nikki Bella dressed as the Super Mario Bros. because they were “major league butt kickers”, AJ dressed as Kitana from the Mortal Kombat series and, in nearly every definition of a masterstroke, tried to f**king levitate Tamina with her fans.

Do you understand what this means? It’s all real. AJ is actually this person. Look at her, she did the stance and everything. The fans would’ve levitated her, too, if this had happened in CHIKARA. How do you come to terms with this? It’s like meeting Santa Claus and finding out he actually brought presents to your house for like 10 years before you stopped believing in him. It’s like meeting John Cena and finding out he never gives up IN REAL LIFE. AJ, beautiful young pretty AJ with her size 0.3 waist and optimistically five-figure pro wrestling salary knows who this Mortal Kombat character is and could reference her like I might. I’ve never been so happy. Congratulations, AJ, your little fan waggle moved you into my FAVE FIVE. From now on I’m referring to you as “my girl AJ RIGHT THERE”.

And way, way over on the other end of the believable costumes spectrum we have battle royal winner Eve Torres, who explained via WWE.com Exclusive that she chose Robin because “not a lot of people know this, but Robin was a master of the martial arts”, and because she trains in jiu jitsu she feels a special connection to Robin, and I guess not Batman or Nightwing or Lady Shiva or Batgirl or Talia al Ghul or Catwoman or the f**king Creeper or the 100,000 other Batman-related characters who know martial arts. She feels a connection to the one who has a shiny “sexy” version of his costume at the Halloween Express. The Batman character who pops his coochie before he does a handspring onto guys. That guy. Deep connection.

While we’re at it, as much as I liked Kaitlyn as Dog: The Bounty Hunter and Aksana as the world’s least athletic Morticia Addams, how many more times are we going to have a battle royal to decide the number one contender to the Divas Championship? Is there no other way we can get to this point? Eve won a battle royal to be named the same amount of contender she was two weeks ago. Good job, Eve! What’s the purpose of the other Divas if only Kelly Kelly, Eve and Beth Phoenix get title shots? Wouldn’t it make sense to give Alicia the win here, since she beat Natalya on last week’s Raw? What about giving the shot to someone like AJ and giving them a chance to get a crowd response by actually accomplishing something? If you felt something stronger than, “well here’s Eve again”, you’re lying. Nobody cares about this or likes this. Hell, give it to Nikki Bella, I’d rather see Beth trying to thwart Twin Magic with brute strength than see her pretend the Eve-a-canrana or whatever is a legitimate part of a moveset.

Another thing: girl battles royal where you can toss out your opponent through the ropes instead of over them are pro wrestling’s version of rec league softball where if you walk a guy, the girl batting behind him gets to walk too. Completely stupid. You’re just assuming the girl isn’t any good at softball. Eve can spring backwards off the top rope, but she can’t put a little effort into picking somebody up? Come on. Rey Mysterio is as short as these women, shouldn’t people be allowed to boogie board him under the bottom rope during Royal Rumbles?

Nobody else was wearing a sailor hat. Cee Lo Green isn’t a sailor. What are you doing, Alicia Fox?

Last night on Raw, Alicia Fox competed in the Divas battle royal and guess what her costume was? She bought her costume for this in August. Not since Test showed back up to mention Triple H stealing Stephanie from him have I felt so relieved by a moment of pro wrestling closure.

Best, Oh God This Is So Best: Beaker O’Shaunessy

All of the buys. All of them.

I have a working theory substantiated by 500 episodes of Muppet Babies that it’s impossible to put Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker on screen and have it not be great, and last night continued to prove it. Every moment of this was great, from the idea that a Wellness Tested company is allowing a puppet to cook for them what amounts to blue meth to Christian wanting to meet Muppets but feeling insulted by them not wanting to meet him back (and shoving down Beaker’s head and calling him a nerd) to the coup de grâce: Sheamus BEING A STAR and revealing that he’s distantly related to Beaker. When you approach a Muppet Raw your brain types things like, “they should make Breaker and Sheamus interact because they look exactly the same LOL”, but when they actually do what your brain typed it’s a revelation. All we needed was Sweetums putting Sheamus through the security barrier.

I was really nervous about the Muppets aspect and I have to say that there were some pretty bad moments (Statler & Waldorf mailing it in, Fozzy Bear in general), there were some great ones too. Pretty sure I died laughing when Swagger said “Frog legs, Wokka Wokka.”

I look for Mason Ryan to take his rightful spot in Air Boom, like some WCW type garbage. Also I cringed at some of the Muppet stuff, but it was more entertaining than anything Rock, Cena, Triple H or Nash related.

Haven’t seen the show yet but I’m actually looking forward to it for Muppets and AJ. More comments when I know what I’m talking about but..

“It’s like meeting John Cena and finding out he never gives up IN REAL LIFE. AJ, beautiful young pretty AJ with her size 0.3 waist and optimistically five-figure pro wrestling salary knows who this Mortal Kombat character is and could reference her like I might. I’ve never been so happy. Congratulations, AJ, your little fan waggle moved you into my FAVE FIVE.”

This is awesome, very, very true and really funny to me…possibly because for all the (valid) criticisms, I love the hell out of Cena and finding out he was just like that for real would be amazing.

I thought this was a wonderful RAW and, aside from the BOOKING (which made no sense but never does) and the Del Rio/Big Show match which could have been decent (they’ve had OK matches before) it was everything I wanted.

I really feel that Rio/Show took the momentum out of the show, though. Things just seemed to slow down to a crawl once that match started.

Was I the only one who hoped that while Beaker was being bullied by Christian, Christian would turn into Sheamus but then get “ahem’d” a second time and turned into “Pick on someone your own size” by Big Bird looking menacingly at him?

Totally missed that fan move on the broadcast, Brandon. Can’t believe you picked that up. But yeah, I was asking the same thing about the titles. Why isn’t ANYBODY challenging for these belts? Orton should have cropdusted Cody for the IC belt and took Dolph’s US plate while he was at it? And now Air Boom is dropping to phantom IC champ and the bareknuckle brawler tonight? Dude, come on. Have a tag title scramble and say Kofi’s VISA got lost, and by the time Awesome Truth win, they will have added more kindling to the Survivor Series main event fire.

Bonus points if they would have had Cena/Rock win the belts, and Rock scoff at the notion of their worthlessness, leaving Cena to carry both belts a la TNA Blueprint Matt Morgan.

Given they have “officially” put D Bryan vs WHC on the .com subsite for WM alongside Cena vs Rock (yawn) he will be back to being awesome.

Is it just me, or is it really quite wrong that the best bits of a Raw ep came from Muppets and the Smackdown talent pool? Glossing over the whole Big Show beats ADR match, but i consider that a Raw fail as at least Smackdown didnt have their champ putting someone over.

I haven’t been commenting since I started posting stuff at the wrestling blog and cagesides, but I still love what you do every Tues. This was one of the most fun Raws they’ve had in a long time, and that’s what it needs to be about. Loved reliving the bests while reading this.

I’ve been trying to avoid WWE’s right wing propaganda machine of late but was lured back by the promise of Muppets. Things have become even more topsy turvey while I’ve been away. Every one of the champions is now being used to make the other guy look good?

Everybody has already made up their mind about Cena. Listen to the crowd. You don’t need to put him in the main event every week. Perceptions of Del Rio are still malleable, but WWE are marginalising his contribution, having him beaten clean by Big Show, then bullied by some racist dude who used to be pretty cool.

A huge best for having more than the usual divas show up and perform on raw. If we could get two divas matches on per Raw, or have the divas manage some wrestlers, we could actually build on something. So was Beth and Natalya supposed to be 19th century German prostitutes?

I’m a little confused with Barrett being a Polish resistance fighter. Why not use some kind of British resistance symbol?

How much more amazing would Daniel Bryan breaking his losing streak and beginning his build toward Wrestlemania have been if before winning his first match in ages, he was given a pep talk in the form of an increasing number of Muppets singing him “Just One Person”?

Hahahaha. I fucking love you for referencing the Fuppets in the intro picture. Also for using my “midget with dignity” joke. Shane and I were talking about how Swagger should’ve mauled that chump in like .0005 seconds as the match was happening and I’m glad we’re not alone in thinking it.

How much more amazing would Daniel Bryan breaking his losing streak and beginning his build toward Wrestlemania have been if before winning his first match in ages, he was given a pep talk in the form of an increasing number of Muppets singing him “Just One Person”?

I liked the show, but I feel a bit letdown by it. I wanted The Muppet Show on Raw, but what I got was the Muppets doing WWE-style comedy. Kermit was good and Beaker was really good, but the Waldorf and Statler stuff was awful when it should have been a big old BEST. I mentioned on twitter (what, you didn’t read it?) that while I enjoyed the opening Muppet segment I couldn’t help but imagine how much better it’d have been if the WWE had just signed Colt Cabana. He was born to be on this Raw and instead we got Santino doing that Santino thing that nobody with a sense of humor likes. A great opportunity was merely good because Colt Cabana likes ice cream. Life is unfair like that.

Really though there wasn’t nearly enough Muppets on this Muppet Raw. This was a once in a lifetime Raw and it should have been treated as such. Screw your storylines.

I wish the rock would have stuck to his no to cena, come to boston before survivor series and got beaten up or provoked by awesome truth, and then said yes. would have been an intriguing build up, compared to this right now at least.

I don’t know much about the muppets, but what I saw of them on raw was very entertaining.

After reading all these articles since the punk shoot promo, I realized this has become a vital part of my tuesday midnights, and decided to finally start commenting. Feels good.

Also, you wrote for Wrestling Uncensored? Were you that guy who posted short movies starring his action figures that took forever to download in 1999? Pretty sure that was the first time I ever heard Propagandhi.

I was on my knees praying for Crazy Harry to blow up Johnny Ace’s limo at the end. God, GOD that stuff was so good, and more than anything it inspired me to put in Muppet Show DVDs rather than purchase Survivor Series.

Also, my continuing disappointment in my favorite wrestler continues, as Punk seriously retweets a comment about “WHY CANT YOU ALL JUST ENJOY THINGS”. (sorry I can’t immediately swallow the garbage I’ve been handed, Mr. Voice of the Voiceless)

Loved loved loved the fan lift, and the lack of Triple H. I’m happy for them to keep Kevin Nash on staff if all he’s gonna do is give Hunter a concussion every week.

The Rock and Cena are both as unlikable as they’ve ever been right now.

The Muppets worked well, partly because they generally matched them up with some of the most cartoonish, Muppet-like people on the roster: Santino, Vickie, Cody, Swagger, Dolph the Human Super Ball. I’d been terrified of a Triple H hurr-hurr-there’s-a-hand-up-your-butt-yeah-i-said-it moment.

@David Deej Eischeid – I’m not sure what you’re talking about. To compare Cena to Barrett in this situation is weird, because Barrett and Rhodes were just kinda beating up Kingston, Bourne got tagged in and they did some stuff. Cena gets literally thrown through the stage, gets a different part of the stage dumped on him, gets run over by a truck and gets up perfectly fine. That’s a pretty broad difference there that doesn’t boil down to unfair criticism.

“Ham sandwich, Waka Waka” that was awesome! I really liked watching the All American American try to get through the rest of his schpeal with a straight face. For the most part, the Muppets fell flat with the Raw audience. But I really thought Christian did a great job interacting with them. Great article, as always.

Oh god when they started stretching Gonzo and threatening redemption for Muppet Interference I immediately started yelling JOB OUT SWAGGER TO SWEETUMS. Don’t tell me they couldn’t have just put, like, Kane in the costume for one night.

Also Best for Tiny Fuppets picture, possibly the best use of The Rock ever.

There’s a part of me that hopes like crazy that they know the HHH-Nash thing is hot garbage, and that’s why we didn’t have to watch the recap for the 877th time until 10:45. I really want to believe that.

Also, while I was starting to wear out on Zack Ryder just a little, because it did seem like they were beginning to mess with what made him good, I thought he did a fantastic job last night. Obviously, a huge part of that is Dolph, who has consistently been the best guy on the show for weeks now. But give Ryder this: people give a shit about him, and sadly, that is in short supply anymore. Has anyone ever received two positive sides of a dueling cheer before he did on Monday? And come on, B, the Rough Ryder is maybe 4% more unrealistic that every other finisher ever. At least he lands on the guy in theory. The damn Attitude Adjustment has all the impact of a vertical suplex, the RKO can come from anywhere (provided the recipient has flung himself toward Orton with no intent of performing an offensive move), and the 619 is the 619. Anyway, it occurred to me both watching last night and reading this column that somehow, despite their track records, Zack Ryder is taken more seriously that Jack Swagger. Swagger has been rolled up by everyone on the roster, while the last two years of Ryder’s career have been a tree falling in the woods. But for whatever reason, people are really behind him now, so they might as well ride it until the blow it.

I was very happy to see Punk in the Jack Burton BTiLC t-shirt, but AJ as Kitana was even better. I must’ve looked away, because I missed her doing the fan move during the battle royal; thank you for pointing that out (and providing a GIF of the actual moment). I still think a pic of AJ would have improved the article, but what do I know.

It’s disappointing when the best parts of a wrestling show are the non-wrestling bits, but so it goes in the post-Attitude era. The Muppet segments were fun, except for Statler and Waldorf, who were surprisingly terrible.

I thought you’d forgotten the Tag Title on your list of the order of title importance in the WWE, but then I realized that your list was, in fact, completely accurate.

I made the mistake of reading a liveblog from cageside that was the complete opposite of this review- it was all about boosting the Rock, frequently calling him “the best to ever do it,” and shitting on the Muppets. So yeah, never going to do that again.

Beaker, as he has been throughout the modern run of the Muppets, was A STAR!

Dwayne Johnson doesn’t belong in WWE. Professional Wrestling is sad and pathetic. It’s for uneducated athletes who weren’t good enough to make it in professional sports. Triple H makes a lot more money being Triple H than he would being Paul the Personal Trainer. I get that, but Dwayne made it out.

This is like George Clooney coming back to serial television or Demi Moore posing for Oui again. It’s just sad.

I wasn’t sure how the Muppets would be on Raw, but I loved every segment they were in. The Punk stuff was bleh. But I did kinda like the Del Rio/Big Show match, even though it was really, REALLY slow (but not that finish, hell no).

Hey man— I just wanted to say I read this column regularly, and the first thing I thought of when AJ came out as Katana was how you, sir, a man on the internet who I have never met, is absolutely going to freak the f*ck out. She really is every man’s fantasy, isn’t she?

Anyway, always enjoy your columns, and this one is no exception. Keep up the good work!

@Kungjitsu – Sucks for you pal, cuz Dwayne The Rock Johnson said he was NEVER leaving! Also, he was the 50th most interesting person/Muppet on the show last nIght, so that. Also also, George Clooney is banging a girl who became famous for having long legs and being powerbombed through tables by damn Dudleys. My point is you have no point.

Also, too: Would it absolutely KILL the Rock to spend a little of the time he’s got in between “Live Via Satellite” appearances coming up with some new material? I know his entire career is based on beating the same two or three catchphrases into the ground, but still with the “Fruity Pebbles” jokes? Cena’s been wearing camo and black for at least two weeks now, Eyebrow Boy.

@Brandon – yea it sucks that they are using the same name for a similar article but honestly it’s your writing that keeps me coming back. I mostly agree with your points and a lot of the time you make me think about something with a different perspective. Just keep this good work up and you’ll be the #1 “Best and Worst of Raw” on the net.

Based on this show, the booking and the writing seem to be on two different levels, because the writing was great when it had nothing to do with the booking. When the nonsensical booking gets booked and then the writing has to fill in the gaps, that’s where the show turn into Lost.

Maybe develop a Dugout with Pronk and Jerry Lawler coming together to help Jim Thome finally master his shoelaces. Ring boots require pretty good butterfly technique.

I’d volunteer to help with raw reports, but all I know is Stampede Wrestling, NW All Star Wrestling, and some Portland Wrestling from the early 80s, when Billy Jack Haynes ran the show. No one’s going to get Al Tomko references.

I was wary of the Muppets thing,as I was never a fan, but the Sheamus bit had me laughing.

While Punk continues to be all over the place (sadface, as my CM Punk Halloween Costume was awesome), the Legion of Heels is what keeps me coming back. Rhodes, Ziggler, Barrett, Swagger, and Christian (along with ADR from time to time), should just band together officially as a stable. They have all the damn belts, after all!

They should call themselves “the union” or something, so that Vince can takes his Jabs at the Left, and dominate. Having dominant bad guys makes for good drama, as it gives clear character wants (stop the bad guy, get the belt), and leads to simple, easy story telling and booking.

It’s too bad there’s not like, I don’t know, an annual event based around group combat.

Okay so I’m chiming in really late here because I didn’t have power for a week and just now got it back. I didn’t actually watch Raw, again the no power thing, but I love reading the column and checking out the clips. Ziggler is the man, he needs to be World Champ sometime soon and like FOR REALZ champ, not WE’LL JUST HAND YOU THE BELT FOR 5 MINUTES THEN TAKE IT AWAY champ. The guy can sell ice to an Eskimo. I’m totally with you on this, it takes a master to make Ryder’s Flying Dick Attack look as devastating as a Running Awesome Bomb.

I got lost around “and it always reminds us of Wrestlemania and the worst non-Hogan main event in that show’s history” because I automatically thought of Lesnar/Goldberg and couldn’t derail myself long enough to figure out what else could be considered for this spot.

But you might be onto something with Swagger’s onscreen persona. And I DEFINITELY agree on the “deriding race/nationality just for being foreign is bullshit” item. And “you’ve forgotten what stories ARE” problems. And Beaker/Sheamus made the whole night for me.